Friday, July 31, 2009

Obviously I'm not going to spoil the surprise announcement here on my blog. You'll hear about it on Tuesday via Twitter and Facebook, which are both more fun than a blog anyway. At least Twitter is. Facebook I'm not so sure about. Facebook is fun for friends. I've reconnected with about 90% of my past, which is good...ish. More good than bad, amen. Does Facebook work for bands? I definitely don't have fun trying to maintain the page. It's always changing and I can never find what I need when I want to post something. So I make Nikki do it. ANNOYING. Especially for Nikki. Myspace is a much more user friendly atmosphere for bands. It just feels like nobody is really there anymore. Just annoying spam type people. How are you all using these various social networking sites? I'm very curious...

I tend to watch a little bit of children's TV these days, for no apparent reason. So I will give you 1 Blues Clue on the announcement. Hint: Pizza is involved.

The other day we found mice droppings in the kitchen. I think even for anyone with a sane mind, finding mice droppings is disturbing. So I want you to imagine what it did to me - woman who sees at least a few minutes of every hour every night for the past 7 months (last 2 months of pregnancy aren't exactly restful....). The thought of adding to my daily duties "kill mice intruders" seemed exasperatingly overwhelming. I mean, obviously capturing them humanely in the state I'm in would demand FAR too much focus and attention. Of which I have neither. My days of 3 hour meditations are long long long long gone sadly. I don't even have time to listen to a Pema Chodron book tape these days people. This blog right now is happening during a hormone blackout. Trust me. I won't remember it happened. I digress...

Good news came in the form of a paralyzing stench from behind the dishwasher. Scratch off list "mouse trap." Add to list "call neighbor Mike and beg him to remove dead mouse from behind dishwasher." Last night we saw neighbor Mike and explained our latest "only females live in this house" dilemma (we can't put Thomas to work just yet). Turns out Mike doesn't do mice. He jumps up on chairs. And for the record, he doesn't do spiders either. So now we've got a real problem on our hands.

Back in 1996, I had an apartment in New York City warmly nestled above a bar called Henrietta Hudson's. Aside from it's obvious unbeatable geographical location, it was, how shall I say this, INFESTED with mice. Steve, my upstairs neighbor, would come down nightly to remove the trappings of the day - often times humanely. At the time, I used to sleep at night and humanely capturing unwanted intruders didn't overwhelm me so much. I Facebooked Steve, who now lives in Nyack, and he said he'd be happy to help out with the latest mouse haunting I'm experiencing. How's the fall look? DAMN! I mean, yes, I'm glad we'll get to visit. But that stench, well, by fall...

My Dad asked, "are you sure it's a dead mouse? Cause I think you'd smell it under the sink or when you opened the stove...."

Excellent point Frank Hendo. Excellent point. @lizbrooks and I are going to chase this mystery down hopefully at the next dual twin nap. This morning's dual twin nap is officially coming to an end (insert screaming Thomas). If it is a dead little stinky mouse, maybe we'll post a photo...if it isn't, at least I get to see my old neighbor Steve in the fall.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

I'd like to thank 'A Trifling Matter' for the divine inspiration tweeted in my direction. I feel 10 lbs. lighter with my new blog name. Which reminds me. I need to lose the last 10 lbs. of baby weight...any inspirational tweets for that?

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

I've tweeted it out to the universe, and I must admit I got some very creative suggestions for what I should rename this very blog. As tweeted, I think 'Kristen Henderson of Antigone Rising' feels a bit clunky, lacks spunk and originality, and doesn't give me any room to stretch my blogging prowess into other arenas, like say exersaucer reviews, or which Baby Einstein DVD is truly the best, or how I'm going to make Lizzy pull out the dishwasher tomorrow to get the dead mouse I suspect is back there.

There are two suggestions in particular that stood out from all the tweets received and I would like to acknowledge them here. The first came in from Chuck, long time friend/fan of the band. His suggestion was 'Antigone Blogging.' Just the thought of it makes me laugh. I picture Antigone alone in the cave about to tie the noose around her neck, but wait...one more blog before she goes.

I believe many of you can guess who the second suggestion came in from. I would like to point out this was the favorite of both Sarah & Lizzy over our Ruby Tuesday Welcome Home Dinner.'KRISTENREALLYHEARTSCOURTNEYNOTSARAH'

Monday, July 20, 2009

The other day I got one of those spam tweets. For those non savvy twitter peeps, that's a 140 character or less piece of spam that comes into your twitter account. This one said something about babies and a free subscription. Like a jack ass, I clicked it. Lo and behold, it was a free subscription to a baby magazine, one that I've read in the waiting room of my OBGyn and I actually find informative, which leads to this quick side story.

I used to work in advertising in a prior life (shout out Chiat/Day). Sales reps from this particular baby magazine used to call on me to advertise my clients products in their book. I used to snicker on the inside because the mag was distributed FOR FREE in doctors offices around the country. So my 20 something year old ignorant self thought the circulation numbers were grossly inflated, who's REALLY reading this FREE magazine in the doctor's office? Turns out ME. Seriously, 20s were the darkest years. You think you know everything and you really know jack shit.

OK. Back to the story. I fill in my information for the free subscription to the magazine I used to cut from my media plans because I thought new moms didn't actually read it (sorry to the publishers of the magazine 10 years later). Upon hitting "send", I get prompted to enter some baby photo contest. Well, I happen to have 2 of the most beautiful babies in America....and I happen to own the Ashton Kutcher Nikon camera.....and I happen to take about 30,000 photos of my babies a day. So I've got a few shots that I think to myself on the inside make me eligible to be the next Annie Leibowitz of child photography. Like a complete jackity ass, I enter one of the photos into the contest.

HAH! What was I thinking?

Needless to say, the contest people AGREE with me! They too think my baby is ONE OF THE MOST beautiful babies in all of America. And if I pay $20, my most beautiful baby COULD BE one of 1,500 chosen to be in a coffee table book. And FURTHERMORE, could be THE SOLE winner of a $25,000 bond. They seem emphatic about it, as they've sent me nearly 3,000 emails in the past 2 days reminding me to pay $20 before my baby is no longer in the running to be THE MOST beautiful in America.

In all honesty, my conflict is twofold. Aside from the contest's obvious "send us your money and we'll declare your baby the most beautiful on earth" scammish nature, I can't just let ONE of my baby's win! I feel guilty for only submitting ONE baby and EVEN MORE GUILTY that I submitted the one I did to this scammer contest!!!

So I'm going to forgo the contest, keep my $20, and see if I get my free subscription. I will read the magazine cover to cover, in an ironic twist, and pray my baby's photo doesn't start showing up in random places.

The biggest difference between my 20s and my 30s? At least in my 30s I get what a jack ass I am the moment I hit "send".

Monday, July 13, 2009

So, I bought a bass guitar. I really struggled with the decision to buy it. I figured I must know someone who can lend me one while I explore whether or not this will be something I do in the long term (be a bass player). And sure enough, I did find a few people who had bass guitars. They just weren't Fender J Basses, like the one I wanted. I researched it. Basses. And I got obsessively meticulous. I went to guitar stores and played them. All of them. And the Fender J Basses felt right. So right, they made me feel like I wanted to become a long term real life bass player. So I made a deal in my head. I will buy my own Fender J Bass, but I will SELL one of my Fender electric guitars in order to do so. And that's exactly what I haven't done yet.

You see, when my dream Fender J Bass became available on eBay BEFORE I sold my Fender Esquire Reissue, I figured fine. I'll buy the bass. And then I'll sell the Esquire. But it was 4th of July week, and who's really looking to buy a guitar on eBay during the 4th of July? So now the week is over. And today I snapped open my '59 Fender Esquire Custom Shop Reissue to take photos of it to put it up on eBay. But it's just so...heavenly. I mean, what a GREAT guitar. How can I sell that one? What am I thinking? It was my go to guitar for "Buying Bridges" when we were touring. It just sounded SO good with a little chorus pedal. Just the right amount of scratch in the rhythm part, and when I kicked it in with the over drive pedal for the closing dual solo with Sibby, oh how we'd sore together. It bounced off the back of the arena walls in Chicago when we opened for The Stones. Which got me to thinking! We opened for THE STONES!!! How could I ever get rid of THAT guitar? I can't bare to...so which guitar do I sell?

Maybe I should sell my Martin M3SC. That's the Shawn Colvin signature model. For any of you that know me, well, you know what that guitar could possibly mean to me. I bought it with money from our record deal advance. It was like a dream to even HAVE money from a real record deal advance! Now I'm contemplating selling off that very same guitar I bought with the money from my record deal advance? Who does that?

And only a fool would sell a '67 Fender Tele. I mean. That's not even an option. I could buy 25 Fender J Basses with what I SHOULD get for a '67 Tele. It's not even the same market. Or the '78 Tele for that matter. I could probably get 10 J Basses for that. And you certainly can't expect me to sell my '52 Tele Reissue that is my PRIMARY electric guitar through thick and thin. It's the Springsteen look a like. The one I PLAY.

Obvi. NOT selling the 1964 suburst Gibson J-45. I mean. That's not happenin'.

And you didn't just ask about my Buck Owens' Harmony acoustics. NO.

So anyway. This gets me back to my original dilemma. What to sell...what to sell...I can't just BUY guitars ad infinitum. I just googled ad infinitum and I'm using it correctly here. My primary job currently is raising MY OWN babies. So that's not very lucrative. I mean, rewarding - certainly. If dirty diapers paid for guitars, I'd be in business. Unfortunately, that's just not the case.

So let me go take the photos of the '59 Fender Custom Shop Esquire. And maybe I'll sell it. Because if I'm going to play bass, I do need a bass cabinet too...and I CANNOT imagine selling my Vox AC 30 amplifier to offset the cost of a new Ampeg Bass Cabinet....!

ps-I gave up trying to figure out how to layout the photos on this post. Before babies, I held myself to a much higher standard. Now, I strive for DONE.